You are here

EIS News

Sarah Wadham, the Director General of the Enterprise Investment Scheme Association (EISA) has announced she will be stepping down at the end of March. She will remain a director on the board of the not-for-profit association.

EISA is the official trade body for firms which aid the provision of capital to UK small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) through the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS) and its younger sibliing, the Seed Enterprise Investment Scheme (SEIS).

This is a founder's story, from Brighton, about a company that went to the crowd to raise equity for a smartphone app. Nicole Carman worries that many of us are becoming addicted to our gadgets, and would appreciate some help. Her solution? A gadget that helps us to be mindful about the way we use technology, and helps us to improve our behaviour.

Nicole's company, wittily named Glued.to, has made an app that helps families to monitor their daily screen time on laptops, phones, and other gadgets, and helps them reduce device usage and make it more positive.

Britain's tech companies are flocking to the Enterprise Investment Scheme (EIS). New research from Radius Equity shows a 27% increase in take-up, compared to a year ago. The findings of this survey contrast with recent comments from the CBI among others, that too few elegible firms are taking advantage of EIS, and the scheme should be promoted more widely.

EIS is a government scheme that stimulates investment in small, high-growth companies by offering tax breaks. Firms have to register for EIS and go through an approval process, but investors in approved offerings are entitled to 30% initial income tax relief, and also benefiting from profits free of capital gains tax.

Equity crowd investors expect to hold their shares come rain, come shine, but an innovative platform from Mercia Fund Management (MFM) will allow investors to make offers for one other's holdings and negotiate transactions in unlisted assets that would otherwise be "not readily realisable" (which is the regulator's jargon for "hard to get rid of".)